THE INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE OF YOUTH WRITING CENTERS

Survivors of the Great War of 2016

After the Great War of 2016, America became a devastated, post-apocalyptic wasteland, ruled by an authoritarian overlord with limited language skills. But then the Resistance rose up. This is a first-hand account from the front lines of the guerrilla army of social justice warriors as it fights back using every tool at its disposal, from social media accounts to self-published books. But will they be able to overcome their internal divisions long enough to #resist? Ugh, I can’t believe I just used a hashtag like that. I’m so sorry.

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“There is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations.” — Michel Foucault

“To operate within the matrix of power is not the same as to replicate uncritically relations of domination.” — Judith Butler

“I have the power.” — He-Man

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258 Days After The End

They’re more powerful than us and they’ve been hunting us down, so the Resistance has gone underground. We’ve lost too many already in the battles that have been waged. And when I say “gone underground,” I mean “moved to Brooklyn.”

We are safer here. But no one’s really safe, not anymore. Not since the Election.

Before we went underground, we held a town hall-style meeting. The Resistance doesn’t necessarily have a defined leader; we are more of a “leaderful” movement, and we have a fluid and horizontal organizational structure. This makes Resistance meetings very loud. But at least in these meetings we can pretend that we still are free.

This was the communiqué that was approved:

Resistance Communiqué No. 337 TOPSECRET

Due to continuing threats on the Lives of the Resisters, the Resistance will relocate its headquarters to BROOKLYN. This measure is taken despite the objection of several Resisters that doing so would only contribute to the gentrification of neighborhoods and force out the families who have been living there for decades, which, everyone agreed, is a bad thing. However, as others pointed out, (1) Brooklyn has lots of cute coffee shops, and (2) gentrification might be a secondary concern now that we live in a post-apocalyptic society. Furthermore, (3) after a long battle and the deaths of several Resisters, the Resistance now controls the former Hillary Clinton campaign headquarters.

I arrived at the building on a gray morning. It was a gray shell of its former glory, cracked and decaying under a gray sky. A gray, fetid wind flew across my face: it was the smell of the gray East River, stagnant with gray industrial waste now that environmental regulations on manufacturers have been relaxed.

I walked inside, and two guards blocked my way.

“Password?”

I consulted the note given to me by a dying old man whose Obamacare coverage had been undermined. “Single-payer,” I whispered.

“Correct,” said one of the guards.

“Now, wait a second there, Fred,” said the other one. “I know you were allowed to come up with the password this week, but do we really have to make it sound like we all support single-payer healthcare?”

“Are you saying you don’t support it?”

“Well, I mean, it sounds good, but I feel like a lot of people have different ideas about what it means.”

“Medicare for all, that’s what Bernie says.”

“Oh, Bernie.” The second guard rolled his eyes.

“Do you have a problem with Bernie?”

“Fred, I don’t want to reargue the primaries. We’re trying to mount a sustained resistance campaign against authoritarianism.”

“Well, Bernie would have won.”

“Can I go through?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

I continued into the darkness, their voices echoing behind me. I passed dozens of huddled figures shivering in the shadows. A skeletal dog played with a ripped bumper sticker that read I’M WITHHER.

I took the elevator and pressed the only button that was still lit, and I felt the machine rumble to life. Finally it stopped. I stepped out. The wind whipped through the bombed-out windows. Across the river, the skyscrapers were all crumbling, except for a few that stood, gleaming, with his name shining from their top floors.

“This is what we’re up against,” said a voice.

I turned around, and there she was. She had a scar across her cheek and wore an eye patch, but she was still the same as I had seen her on television.